Category Archives: History

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Paris

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My immediate hot take:

In general, it’s wise to say “We don’t know who did this or why and we shouldn’t speculate until we get all the facts.” In this case we know exactly who did it, and why. The French won’t be talking nonsense about “violent extremism.”

The (obviously) racist French have closed the borders. They are going to (GASP!) profile, to determine who can leave the country. For example, white (and probably many black) Americans will be allowed to leave. Adult male Algerians and Moroccans (and Syrians, to the degree that they’ve been invading recently) not so much.

This was an act of war, and I expect France to treat it as such. Unfortunately, with the apparent collapse of Westphalia, it won’t be obvious who to punish for it, but if ISIS takes “credit” for it, expect them to get a pounding in Syria and Iraq, Russians or no. And unlike us or Israel, the French know they will be immune from charges of “war crimes.”[Update a few minutes later]

#ProTip The French declaration of a state of emergency effectively suspends civil liberties.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Call me nuts, but I’m guessing that France, and Europe in general, is going to be tightening its Syrian-refugee policy as a result of this.

[Saturday-morning update]

Great timing, Barack: “We have contained [ISIS].” An asshat extraordinaire.

Also, oopsie, more bad timing: Al Gore in Paris this weekend for a summit on the “greatest challenge facing us,” too much plant food in the atmosphere.

Roger Simon: Why Paris happened. Yes, there don’t appear to be any world leaders today, least of all Barack Obama.

Mark Steyn: “The barbarians are inside, and there are no gates.”

And from Richard Fernandez: A Europe with no borders has taken a body blow:

It’s significant that the attacks occurred during a period of heightened alert associated with big soccer matches. French president Hollande himself was watching a game when he had to be unceremoniously shuttled to the safety of a government building. That suggests that French security forces and intelligence were genuinely surprised by the attack and therefore there exist terror networks they don’t know about capable of large-scale operations. Scotland Yard and MI5 must realize this and will inevitably be burning the midnight oil tonight.

DHS should be doing the same thing.

[Afternoon update]

Claire Berlinski checks in from Paris.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Fred Thompson

1 Comment

Rest in peace. My condolences to Jeri and the family.

He was my top pick in 2008, and it was a disappointment that he had to drop out. The “fire in the belly” thing is one of the stupidest modern reasons to not pick a president. We shouldn’t want someone to run the country who wants the power that badly. Ideally, we’d draft someone who didn’t want the job, but was abundantly competent and would accept it out of patriotism (original example, G. Washington; much more recent one, Paul Ryan).

It’s interesting to note that if he’d been elected, and re-elected, he’d have died in office. Of course, in that alternate history, he might still be alive.

[Late-evening update]
More thoughts from Michael Ledeen.

Business, Culinary, Education, Health, History, Technology and Society

Fixing Broken Bread

4 Comments

An interesting article on going back to pre-industrial wheat.

It isn’t clear the degree to which grain is intrinsically bad for us, and to which it’s been made much worse by the current varieties and processing methods.

I found this an interesting statement: “The giant band of wheat that stripes the center of America is a byproduct of the industrial age.”

That could be said of many unhealthy things, including the public school system.

Education, History, Law

“I Love Free Speech…”

3 Comments

…but:

In less awful news, 95 percent of the students surveyed said that free speech is important to them. However, as I have long predicted and discussed, when you ask Americans if they like free speech, they nearly always say “yes.” But when you get into the nitty gritty details about what kind of speech warrants protection, you discover that some folks (especially college students) are more in the “I love free speech, but…” camp. And I fear the list of exceptions is growing larger by the day.

Not sure which is more dismaying, that they’re unaware of the First Amendment, or that they oppose it. But clearly the Left is continuing its march through the institutions. Which is why books like this one could be very valuable:

Why a father-son collaboration? That’s what I wanted to know, too, so I asked the elder Paulsen, who was a year ahead of me at Yale Law School. Mike reported that he had given a lecture at Princeton in 2006, after which the law professors and college professors at dinner complained about their students’ “goofed-up ideas” about the Constitution. The law professors blamed the college professors, the college professors said “they came to us this way,” and blamed pervasively bad ideas about the Constitution in the culture, the media and even textbooks. Stuck in an airport the next day, Prof. Paulsen killed time writing an outline.

If they can get them to read it. The problem starts in kindergarten, and extends all the way into post-docs.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Fred Hof

2 Comments

“I was wrong“:

I’ve indicated I admire Hof’s honesty and courage in admitting this. But that doesn’t mean I admire everything about him. For example, why didn’t he speak up in September of 2012, which after all was prior to Obama’s re-election? Might it have mattered? I really don’t know, but maybe. And why, oh why, had this very smart man not noticed that the biggest “policy priority” of the Obama administration has long been politics and spinning to political advantage?

Seriously, by March of 2012, how could he have not realized this? His bio doesn’t say much about his political affiliation—I would guess “Democrat” and probably “liberal Democrat”—and this is the most likely explanation for his failure to notice things that were absolutely obvious but would mean splitting with the party.

And there is no more unforgivable thought crime than splitting with the Party, regardless of the damage to the nation

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Bob Woodward

3 Comments

…is sounding both partisan and senile on Fox News Sunday. No one is accusing Clinton of a crime in Benghazi. Her crimes have to do with her handling of email. But that’s no excuse for the Democrats to pretend that there’s nothing there, and run interference for her. This has been policitized, but as always, it’s politicized by Democrats who refuse to hold members of their own party accountable for anything.